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October 10, 2003
Suing Over a Shift Key
So a company that helps digitally copy protect music CD's went from announcing that they intend to sue a Princeton graduate student for disclosing ways to get around their software to chickening out. All in 24 hours. I guess they decided that they would be laughed out of court if they sued someone simply for telling people to press the "shift" key while a CD is playing. How sad.
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Nuke 'Em Already
Apparently Pat Robertson is getting flak for saying that the State Department should be nuked. What I found funny is this paragraph:
Television evangelist and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson's suggestion that a nuclear device should be used to wipe out the State Department was "despicable," department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday.
Well I should hope the State Department spokesman says something to that effect. I mean if you actually work there I should hope you would be very much against the building being nuked, its only common sense right? I have a feeling I am the only one getting a laugh out of this. Oh well, it's my blog and I'll laugh if I want to.
And since I brought it up, I think that Pat Robertson comment is a bit overboard (I have friends in DC anyway and wouldn't you be taking out the White House as well? There isn't really such a thing as a surgical nuclear strike). But you do have to wonder, if the Pentagon started controlling foreign policy because, let us say, the State Department is no more for whatever reason (someone really should introduce a bill to dissolve it) can anyone really argue that we would be worse off? I think, in fact, we would be much better off. It seems to me that the State Department starts messes and the Defense Department has to clean up after them. So why not just have Defense in charge the whole time?
Boy, it really is amazing how hawkish I have become. I remember when I was a big believer in the "all war is murder" line. Blah blah blah.
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WMD
Charles Krauthammer reviews the evidence of Iraqi weapons programs.
Ekeus theorizes that Hussein decided years ago that it was unwise to store mustard gas and other unstable and corrosive poisons in barrels, and also difficult to conceal them. Therefore, rather than store large stocks of weapons of mass destruction, he would adapt the program to retain an infrastructure (laboratories, equipment, trained scientists, detailed plans) that could "break out" and ramp up production when needed. The model is Japanese "just in time" manufacturing, where you save on inventory by making and delivering stuff in immediate response to orders. Except that Hussein's business was toxins, not Toyotas.
The interim report of chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay seems to support the Ekeus hypothesis. He found infrastructure, but as yet no finished product.
As yet, mind you. "We are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapons stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone," Kay testified last week.
This is fact, not fudging. How do we know? Because Hussein's practice was to store his chemical weapons unmarked amid his conventional munitions, and we have just begun to understand the staggering scale of Hussein's stocks of conventional munitions. Hussein left behind 130 known ammunition caches, many of which are more than twice the size of Manhattan. Imagine looking through "600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ordnance" -- rows and rows stretched over an area the size of even one Manhattan -- looking for barrels of unmarked chemical weapons.
And there are 130 of these depots. Kay's team has so far inspected only 10. The question of whether Hussein actually retained finished product is still open.
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Nobel Peace Prize
The winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace prize has been announced.
OSLO, Norway - Human rights activist Shirin Ebadi won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her work fighting for democracy and the rights of women and children, the first Muslim woman and the first Iranian to receive the accolade.
We had Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari on our poll list, but not Shirin Ebadi.
We'll have a new poll up next week.
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Ghettopoloy
Black leaders are now whining over a ghetto version of Monopoly that is sold in Urban Outfitter stores:
Shine displayed the game board, with properties including Westside Liquor, Harlem, The Bronx, and Long Beach City, and squares labeled Smitty’s XXX Peep Show, Weinstein’s Gold and Platinum, and Tyron’s Gun Shop.
Players draw “Hustle” and “Ghetto Stash” cards with directions like, “You’re a little short on loot, so you decided to stick up a bank. Collect $75,” and “Steal $$$ if you pass Let$ Roll.”
Game pieces include a rock of crack and a marijuana leaf. I actually wouldn't mind picking one up, it looks pretty hilarious. Note that Redneckopoly is coming soon so the company seems to be making fun of everybody.
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Iraq progressing nicely
Andrew Sullivan compiled a nice summary of a report from the Iraqi provisional governing authority of what we have accomplished in Iraq:
Six months ago there were no police on duty in Iraq.
· Today there are over 40,000 police on duty, nearly 7,000 here in Baghdad alone.
· Last night Coalition Forces and Iraqi police conducted 1,731 joint patrols.
· Today nearly all of Iraq’s 400 courts are functioning.
· Today, for the first time in over a generation, the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
· On Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts—exceeding the pre-war average.
· Today all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
· Many of you know that we announced our plan to rehabilitate one thousand schools by the time school started—well, by October 1 we had actually rehabbed over 1,500.
Six months ago teachers were paid as little as $5.33 per month.
· Today teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
· Today we have increased public health spending to over 26 times what it was under Saddam.
· Today all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
· Today doctors’ salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
· Pharmaceutical distribution has gone from essentially nothing to 700 tons in May to a current total of 12,000 tons.
· Since liberation we have administered over 22 million vaccination doses to Iraq’s many children.
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October 09, 2003
I can't believe I went there
Some students at my alma mater, Penn, are upset because the school paper ran the picture of a student accused of sexually assaulting another. And not because of some sort of presumption of innocence but simply because he is black and they feel it is "racially insensitive" to run the picture of a black person associated with committing a crime. What planet are they living on? First, Penn is located in mostly black West Philadelphia and guess what is the race of the people who mug Penn students? There certainly aren't gangs of 87 year old Jewish women terrorizing students (unless you count people's grandmothers who can sometimes be a bit on the yenta side). So not running the picture is not going to change the perceptions of Penn students. And anyway, from what I can tell from a scan of articles it does sound like he did what they say he did (the defense claims it was all an "honest mistake") so publishing his picture is legitimate. These people should get over it, I can't believe there is actually a scandal over this.
What there should be a bigger scandal over is the fact that the Muslim Students Association is sponsoring a neo Nazi to speak on campus and the school is paying for it (via lgf). I can't believe Jewish students are having their tuition dollars spent on bringing someone to campus who most likely wants to kill them. It is disgusting. And I can't believe Ivy League students would bring such a person to campus.
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You can't make this stuff up
Why central planning always leads to destructive monopolies: South African style.
Take-out delivery illegal
09/10/2003 16:02 - (SA)
Pietermaritzburg - Before you order your next pizza, think twice. It's now illegal to have a pizza delivered in South Africa.
This is just one of the bizzarre effects of the new Post Office Amendment Bill, which was presented to parliament by the communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and passed on September 11.
It gives the post office and its subsidiaries - Speed Services and XPS - the sole right to transport parcels that weigh under 1kg and leaves no room for any other delivery services to apply for a license to do so.
This means that it would be illegal for pharmacies, for example, to deliver medicine to house-bound patients, or for a romantic to order flowers to be sent to a loved one.
Nor can you get a pizza delivered to your house unless your order weighs more than 1kg.
This would effectively shut down small-scale delivery services and would create thousands of retrenchments.
Wesley Cross, managing director of small, black owned courier firm in Pietermaritzburg, Fast Forward Direct, said that thousands of jobs were at stake.
The effect on bigger delivery services, such as DHL would be equally devastating. Around a third of DHL parcels weigh under 1kg, said DHL's national managing director Andy Baker.
The law effectively gives the post office a monopoly and this is to be the subject of an investigation by the Competition Commission.
The domestic courier industry has formed a lobby group to engage the authorities on these issues and obtain clarity. - African Eye News Service
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The Wilson/Plame leak
A Mark Steyn must read on the what this so-called leak really means.
If sending Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger for a week is the best the world’s only hyperpower can do, that’s a serious problem. If the Company knew it was a joke all along, that’s a worse problem. It means Mr Bush is in the same position with the CIA as General Musharraf is with Pakistan’s ISI: when he makes a routine request, he has to figure out whether they’re going to use it to try and set him up. This is no way to win a terror war.
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Why Politicians Sell Out
T. Norman Van Cott attempts to explain why politicians who promise to reduce the size of government and ensure fiscal responsibility on the campaign trail almost invariably become more tolerant of government excess once they become ensconced within the Beltway. I would've thought it was because politicians are, as a group, unprincipled, power-hungry scoundrels who care about nothing except their next election. Van Cott has a slightly fuller explanation, mostly echoing reasoning originally laid out by Nobel winner, James Buchanan.
More prosaic, but essential to explaining these conversions, is an understanding of the incentives that confront Beltway politicos. The fact is that U.S. federal tax institutions give Americans powerful incentives to pick the pockets of their fellow citizens in other districts/states. I live in Indiana. Who, pray tell, antes up the millions upon millions of dollars in federal spending in Indiana? The short answer: Hoosiers don't!
Indeed, non-Hoosiers pay virtually all the bill for the simple reason that six million Hoosiers account for a miniscule percentage of all Americans. It follows that Hoosier congressmen and senators have powerful incentives to load Hoosier plates to overflowing with federal programs. Why not, someone else is paying. Indeed, an important yardstick by which Hoosiers measure their congressmen and senators is how much "federal bacon" (fat or lean, it makes no difference!) they bring home.
Ditto for Americans in other states and other congressional districts; they face the same incentives. In effect, U.S. fiscal institutions offer incentives to those in Congress to be cross-state and cross-district pickpockets. Is it unfortunate that we all end up pickpocketing each other under the aegis of Uncle Sam? Yes. Theft decreases national wealth. Is it surprising? No.
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Palestinian PM doesn't want the job anymore
The latest Palestinian PM has told Arafat he wants to resign. Not a surprise there. I wouldn't want that job either.
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Attacking Marriage
Some gay rights advocates are now in favor of delegalizing all marriage as a way of "levelling the playing field" between gays and straights. Oh what a bunch of morons. Gays have been arguing for years that their desire for legally recognized gay marriage is not an assault upon the insitution and then this bunch of clowns launches an assault on the insitution just as gay marriage starts to gain some momentum. Also, I love the way of thinking that if they can't have the benefit, nobody should.
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What is up with Lileks?
Okay anybody else find it strange that Lileks hasn't mentioned anything about Arnold's victory? I mean he was so gung ho about it when his candidacy was first announced. Now Arnold is Governor and not a single peep? What gives? His bleat kind of reminds me of an Osama tape. Yeah, it sounds like him but there is no way to tell when it was made since current events aren't mentioned.
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Scary
Students at an Irish University put together a list of well known authors and speakers who were Jews. Occasionally they would add the adjective "Zionist" (via lgf).
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The Hermeneutics of Homosexual Existensialism
This new study suggests that people are born gay.
This new study, however, suggests that people are not born gay.
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NEWSPAPER HEADLINES IN THE YEAR 2035
- Ozone created by electric cars now killing millions in the seventh largest
country in the world, California.
- White minorities still trying to have English recognized as California's
third language.
- Spotted Owl plague threatens northwestern United States crops & livestock.
- Baby conceived naturally.... Scientists stumped.
- Authentic year 2000 "chad" sells at Sotheby's for $4.6 million.
- Last remaining Fundamentalist Muslim dies in the American Territory of the
Middle East (formerly known as Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, and Lebanon.)
- Iraq still closed off; physicists estimate it will take at least ten more
years before radioactivity decreases to safe levels.
- Castro finally dies at age 112; Cuban cigars can now be imported legally,
but President Chelsea Clinton has banned all smoking.
- George Z. Bush says he will run for President in 2036.
- Postal Service raises price of first class stamp to $17.89 and reduces mail
delivery to Wednesday only.
- 35 year study: diet and exercise is the key to weight loss.
- Massachusetts executes last remaining conservative.
- Supreme Court rules punishment of criminals violates their civil rights.
- Upcoming NFL draft likely to focus on use of mutants.
- Average height of NBA players now nine feet, seven inches.
- Microsoft announces it has perfected its newest version of Windows so it
crashes BEFORE installation is completed.
- New federal law requires that all nail clippers, screwdrivers, fly swatters,
and rolled up newspapers must be registered by January 2036.
- Congress authorizes direct deposit of illegal political contributions to
campaign accounts.
- IRS sets lowest tax rate at 75%.
(I wasn't sure whether to list this under 'Humor' or 'Prognostication')
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FDR's Folly
Thomas Sowell reviews Jim Powell's new book FDR's Folly which argues that FDR's policies, rather than ending the Great Depression as is commonly believed, actually made it longer and deeper than it would've been.
In "FDR's Folly," author Jim Powell spells out just what the Roosevelt administration did and what consequences followed. It tried to raise farm prices by destroying vast amounts of produce -- at a time when hunger was a serious problem in the United States. It imposed minimum wage rates that priced unskilled labor out of jobs, at a time of massive unemployment.
Behind both policies was the belief that what was needed was more purchasing power and that this could be achieved by government policies to raise the prices received by farmers and workers. But prices do not automatically translate into greater purchasing power, unless people buy as much at higher prices as they would at lower prices -- which they seldom do.
Then there were the monetary authorities contracting the money supply in the midst of the biggest depression in history -- when the economy was showing some signs of revival, until their monetary contraction touched off another big downturn.
With policy after policy and program after program, "FDR's Folly" traces the high hopes and disastrous consequences. It would be funny, like the Keystone cops running into one another and falling down, except that millions of people were in economic desperation while this farce was being played out in Washington.
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October 08, 2003
Bear love
This unfortunate death exposes the silliness of the way many animal activists view the wild world. Read the whole piece and you'll see that he not only died but caused the death of the animals he so misunderstood.
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Liberal media
With all the efforts from the left (eg Eric Alterman) to convince people that the mainstream media has no liberal bias, there is an interesting poll from Gallup on what average Americans think about media political leanings.
The main conclusion:
Forty-five percent of Americans believe the news media in this country are too liberal, while only 14% say the news media are too conservative. These perceptions of liberal inclination have not changed over the last three years. A majority of Americans who describe their political views as conservative perceive liberal leanings in the media, while only about a third of self-described liberals perceive conservative leanings.
You can follow the link to see all the poll results.
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Kyoto
The Russians: First the flat tax and now calling the Kyoto protocall "scientifically flawed". Thanks guys. As usual I did not see that phrase used in the NY Times article. May the global warming nonsense fall on hard times.
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As good an excuse as any
Scientists seem to have discovered a new way to reduce the risk of breast cancer.
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Ah-nold
Neal Boortz pretty much sums up my feelings about the California recall:
You do know that this isn't the way I wanted this to turn out, though it is what I expected. I truly wanted to see this great and much heralded liberal Democratic government of California carry on for a while longer. I wanted to see more laws enacted like this fascist legislation that Gray Davis signed over the past weekend -- legislation that requires employers to provide health insurance for their employees and, in many cases, their employees families. This law, combined with other fascist laws requiring pay for family leave, "living wage" laws and other regulations are chasing employers either out of California or out of business. I wanted to see more of this. I wanted more voters around the country to see what happens when you really put liberals in charge; when you hand the power to people who think that America is great because of government, not because of the incredible dynamic of individuals interacting freely with one another in a system based on economic liberty.
Having said all that ... we must note that celebrity worship thrives in California, as elsewhere. Clearly the most qualified candidate to replace Gray Davis in California was Tom McClintock. Voters who saw the need to get rid of the free-spending and regulatory hog Gray Davis somehow thought it would be a good idea to replace Davis with a movie star rather than someone with a sound political background and proven ability plus the good ideas that might cure California's ills.
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Lessons from Haifa II
Walid Phares continues his article from yesterday on lessons from the Haifa bombing.
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Rule of Law
Walter Williams has a good column on the costs of all but giving up the assumption-of-risk doctrine in tort law.
For most of our history, we followed the British system of common law, including laws dealing with tort liability. This heritage has been attacked by courts and plaintiff attorneys so much that it is barely recognizable.
One such doctrine of tort liability is the assumption-of-risk doctrine. Simply put, the assumption-of-risk doctrine holds that if the user of a product or service is aware of the danger, and nevertheless proceeds to make use of the product or service and is injured by it, he is barred from recovery. In other words, assumption-of-risk doctrine holds that people bear some accountability for the results of their actions.
As a result of the successful lawsuits against tobacco companies, assumption-of-risk doctrine is a skeleton of its past. For decades, under our traditional tort regime, if a plaintiff knows the risks of smoking, yet still smokes and contracts a tobacco-related illness, he had no claim against the tobacco manufacturer. That's all changed. The courts have all but said that it's the tobacco company, not the smoker, who's responsible for the smoker's plight.
...
The tobacco litigation made the case for diminished personal responsibility and the "social costing" of products. In other words, all a lawyer has to successfully argue is that a product such as tobacco, hamburgers, casinos, cars, etc., are addictive. That means individual responsibility for his lifestyle choices is out the window. Lawyers then hire "expert" witnesses to argue that the product imposes costs on society. Attorney generals and politicians come out of the woodwork calling for taxes to recover those costs. The icing on the cake is to somehow argue that America's precious children are harmed by the product. Success is nearly a foregone conclusion.
...
Abandonment of assumption-of-risk doctrine means Americans pay more, and will pay even more, for the goods and services. When we ski, we risk breaking a leg -- but since we have diminished responsibility, the higher liability insurance premiums paid by ski lodges translate into higher lift ticket prices.
If food companies are to stay in business, they too will have to pay higher
liability insurance premiums and hire teams of lawyers to defend themselves. Who do you think will bear the final burden of these costs? Nullification of responsibility for our actions has had a devastating effect on our economy, not the least of which is international competitiveness. When are we going to call for a halt?
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Sanctions of Syria
Looks like the White House has finally dropped objections to a Congressional bill imposing sanctions on Syria if it doesn't stop its support of terrorism. After being humiliated by Israel in its recent attack and now having the possibility of US sanctions, it looks like the Syrian government has had a really tough week. Well it will get even tougher unless they change their tune. It's about time!
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Compensating the Criminal
This is just unbelievable:
The mother of a man who killed three co-workers before shooting himself in a workplace rampage has asked the company to compensate her for her son's death because it occurred at work, the company said on Tuesday.
Modine Manufacturing Co. has turned down the request by Nina Tichelkamp-Russell, the mother of the 25-year-old gunman Jonathon Russell, company spokesman Mick Lucareli said. But the claim must still be reviewed by the state, he said.
Russell's mother filed a claim seeking death benefits under the workers' compensation system, which provides financial payments to injured workers or the families of workers killed on the job, Lucareli said.
...
Police said Russell brought a Glock semiautomatic handgun to work on the night shift at the plant near Jefferson City, Missouri on July 1. Police said Russell appeared to target certain colleagues as he walked from station to station spraying bullets.
A 44-year-old man and a 29-year-old man died on the plant floor, while a 42-year-old man died on the way to a hospital. Five others were taken to hospitals with injuries.
Russell shot and killed himself after an exchange of gunfire with police.
I really hope she is incapable of further breeding.
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Arafat suffered a heart attack
Looks like Arafat suffered a "mild" heart attack last week. I think it's time the Israelis start a giant fireworks barrage over his compound. We'll see how mild it is then. Muahahahahahahha.
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So How did the Political Markets Do?
Looks like the political markets were relatively accurate in their predictions yesterday. Both Tradesports.com and the Iowa Electronic Market predicted an Ahnold victory. In terms of vote share, the Iowa market was also relatively accurate. It had correctly predicted the % of people voting yes on the recall, 54%. It also was very close in getting the % of the votes going to Bustamante (31% predicted vs. 32% actual) and Ahnold (46% predicted vs. 48% actual). Hooray for markets! And of course, hooray for Ahnold! Now two cast members of Predator will have been elected Governor. Can Carl Weathers be far behind?
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Life at the Bottom
I have just completed Theodore Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom" and cannot recommend it highly enough. If you have ever read Dr. Dalrymple's essays in the City Journal or the Spectator then you are already familiar with his lucid and clear-headed prose. The book makes one of the most powerful arguments against the modern cradle-to-grave welfare and the theories behind it since Charles Murray's "Losing Ground". Unlike Murray's book, however, Dalrymple's argument is largely based on personal experience, working day-in and day-out with the victims, er, clients of the British welfare and prison systems. Many of the stories are heartrending depictions of people whose lives are completely without meaning or purpose, filled with daily violence, without any sense of personal responsibility for their endless cycle of self-destructive behaviour.
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Advice for men
Advice for men on the Ten Types of Women to Avoid. Ah, it brings back memories. I can't tell you how happy I am to have met the perfect woman and married her so I don't have to deal with the single dating scene.
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October 07, 2003
Berkeley Bigotry
People have always talked about Berkeley rejecting qualified applicants on the basis of skin color, well here are some numbers (via Best of the Web):
The University of California, Berkeley admitted hundreds of freshmen students in 2002 with SAT entrance exam scores far below those of other applicants who were denied admission, according to a confidential report.
The preliminary analysis, prepared for the UC Board of Regents and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, reveals that nearly 400 students were admitted to UC Berkeley in 2002 with SAT scores falling between 600 and 1,000, well below the 1,337 average for last year's total admitted class.
Nearly 2,600 applicants with scores from 1400 to 1500 were not admitted and 600 would-be Cal students with SAT scores above 1500 were also rejected. Berkeley officials said some of those high-scoring students that were denied admission had relatively low grade-point averages.
Yes, some of the high scoring students I am sure had relatively low averages, but what about the rest? Notice they didn't use the term 'most'. So what were the other reasons? I just want to hear them admit it. I bet they never will. After all, affirmative action is about helping minorities and society as a whole. They never talk about the people who are not allowed opportunities simply because they don't fit the correct racial profile.
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Arafat May Be Ill
According to the Jerusalem Post, there are reports that Arafat may be seriously ill (and I'm not talking about his murderous dementia):
Four ambulances that were seen entering Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah on Monday afternoon triggered off rumors that he was seriously ill.
Within minutes, senior officials in the compound were bombarded with phone calls from curious journalists. Arafat's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, dismissed reports that Arafat had been taken to a local hospital. He said Arafat suffered from exhaustion and was recovering.
But another senior official said Arafat's health has rapidly deteriorated over the past two weeks. "I don't think it's the flu as some people say," he said. "The president hasn't been feeling well for some time and his health seems to be worsening."
...
"You can see that he's very ill," said someone who attended the meeting. "He can hardly speak. Something bad is happening to him."
Some PA officials said Arafat's decision to declare a state of emergency in the West Bank and Gaza Strip could be linked to his illness. "It's possible that he doesn't want to leave a vacuum behind," said one PA official. "He must have discussed the issue with Abu Ala [Qurei]."
Last week, the PA summoned a team of doctors from Jordan to examine Arafat after he complained of severe abdominal pain. They concluded that he had recovered from a mild illness and only needed some rest.
At first, his aides suspected that he had been poisoned. Arafat had been vomiting for several days. Shortly after the Jordanian team returned home, a journalist in Ramallah quoted a senior PA official as saying that "Arafat's days are numbered."
On Monday evening, journalists and visitors were barred from entering Arafat's compound. The decision only added to the growing speculation about Arafat's health.
It shouldn't be long until the BBC and their allies come up with conspiracy theories that the Mossad poisoned him. Not that I wouldn't secretly (okay not so secretly) hope that it was true.
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Political Markets
With today's election in California we get another chance to check the accuracy of tradeable political markets. Here are the predictions from the Iowa Electronic Market:
Chance of Davis Recall: 88.8%
Vote Share for Yes on Davis Recall: 54%
Chance of Ahnold victory given yes on recall: 92.9%
Vote Share for Ahnold: 45.9%
Vote Share for Cruz Bustamante: 31.2%
And according to Tradesports.com:
Chance of Ahnold as next governor: 79%
Chance of recall failure: 19.9%
One thing to note however is that since these markets are relatively illiquid, if you add up all the probabilities, they don't really add up to exactly 100% and there is a pretty big spread between the bid and ask so I would expect a good amount of error in the results, especially in the vote share markets.
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Being Tough Works
Check out this piece on how the military solution has improved matters in Israel:
Last week marked three years since the outbreak of the intifada and 18 months since Israel started fighting back (in Operation Defensive Shield). Yet people are still being blown up in our streets. The unavoidable conclusion, proclaimed various media commentators, is that the Left was right all along: There is no military solution to terror.
The hard data, however, tell a very different story: that while the war on terror is still far from over, it has actually been making impressive progress.
In the intifada's grim second year, from October 2001 through September 2002, Palestinians killed 449 Israelis and foreigners present on Israeli soil, including both civilians and soldiers. Yet for the year that ended last week, this figure was down 47 percent, to 240.
On a monthly basis, the comparison is even more dramatic. Never again has there been a month even approaching the horror of March 2002, the month before Operation Defensive Shield. The 134 Israelis killed that month is more than three times the death toll during the worst month of the past year, and almost 2.5 times the 58 people killed in the second-worst month of the intifada (June 2002, the month after the army withdrew from Palestinian territory following Defensive Shield. It was this renewed surge of killing that persuaded the government to send the troops back and this time, to keep them there).
Furthermore, two of the worst months of the past year were months in which military activity was drastically curtailed: June 2003, with 32 deaths, and August 2003, with 29. June was the month of the road map "peace process," during which Israel largely suspended military operations so as not to disrupt the "momentum toward peace." August was the month of the famous Palestinian cease-fire, to which Israel responded by restricting its own military activity. (In fact, the death toll that August was higher than in 22 of the 34 months without a truce!) One could thus reasonably assume that had Israel maintained the military pressure over the summer, the year's death toll would have been even lower.
...
Far from proving a failure, the "military solution" has proven its efficacy over the last year. What is needed now is for the government to finally make up its mind to finish the job.
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Lessons from Haifa
Walid Phares says that the suicide bombing in Haifa this past weekend demonstrates a significant change in method.
Usually the istishadee (suicide bombers in Western language) arrives at the premise of the location and throws himself (or her) onto the target. The technique used until the latest Haifa attack was one-dimensional. One trigger, one step, and one result attached to it. The martyrs-to-be were trained to infiltrate, camouflage themselves and surprise the enemy abruptly. The philosophy behind this classical technique draws from an Islamist ideology: If you can't fight a superior enemy, take him with you in a martyrdom operation.
Such doctrine was powerful enough to recruit among the psychologically weaker elements in the society. Basically, you didn't have to fight through your enemy; all you had to do was to trigger a mechanism. No stress, no thinking and no questioning. But in this Haifa operation, a new type of istish had emerged. Maybe not for the first time, but at least publicized as such. The attack against the restaurant was two dimensional. The perpetrator was wired to explode as a human bomb, but she was also armed to fight her way onto the target. Is that a significant difference? Maybe not with regard the victims. They died anyway. But in the War against suicide bombers, it was a leap into a higher level.
The suicide-bomber approached the entrance as she knew it was guarded by an armed security element. In classical cases, she would have chosen to blow herself up at the first contact with the infidel enemy, taking with her the security element, and as much as she can from the target. But this time, the Jihadi bomber engaged the first defense perimeter, i.e, the security guard, eliminated him, then burst into the restaurant and triggered her mini-doomsday device.
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Hooray for tax cuts!
There is a great piece on tax cuts in the WSJ today from Gary Becker, Edward Lazear and Kevin Murphy:
Human capital -- the skills embodied in individuals -- accounts for about 70% of the total capital of the U.S., and a country's economic growth is closely tied to the human capital of its population. Countries that invest heavily in educating their citizens are also those that tend to experience high economic growth following such investments. For these reasons, it is important that tax policies encourage investment in human capital. Investment in human capital is responsive to take-home pay and therefore to tax rates, with the most direct effect coming from income tax.
A highly progressive income tax structure tends to discourage investment in human capital because it reduces take-home pay and the reward to highly skilled, highly paid occupations. Students work long and hard to enter occupations such as medicine and engineering that pay high salaries. The quality of labor in these occupations is lower in countries that cap the pay to professionals because reduced pay discourages individuals from investing in skills. Highly progressive tax structures decrease the gain to acquiring skills that have valuable social payoffs. The current push toward a flatter tax structure is welcome. A flatter structure will have beneficial effects, not only because of the immediate impetus to additional work, but because it will encourage investments in the skills that lead to higher standards of living over the longer run.
The evidence is clear: Cutting taxes will have beneficial effects. Tax cuts will keep government spending in check and will provide the incentives necessary to produce a highly skilled, productive work force that enables high economic growth and rising standards of living.
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Vitamin B
GE Goes Back To The Future
“Because materials are at the foundation of many of our businesses, nanotechnology is absolutely critical to where we go in the future.”
That’s GE CEO Jeffery Immelt, commenting on the importance of quantum-based technologies at General Electric. It may strike some folks strange that GE is plowing millions of dollars into nanotech. But to listen to Immelt, the company has no choice today. In his view, technological innovation is THE business imperative. Immelt is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on building research centers around the world to facilitate innovation at General Electric.
Research and innovation, says Immelt, are absolutely critical to avoiding what he calls “commodity damnation.” There are several areas of technology development that excite Immelt. Among these are molecular imaging, new sources of renewable energy, and nanotechnology.
In Immelt’s view, molecular imaging—the ability to see disease start at the cellular levels—will fundamentally transform the medical imaging business and diagnostic medicine. And while Immelt believes that we will be using fossil fuels for the next 20 years, he is positioning GE to develop new energy technologies, from wind power to hydrogen as a fuel source. General Electric has been in the energy business for a century. In order to remain in the energy business, says Immelt, GE has to have a good understanding of what kind of technologies people could be using to generate electricity in the future. One area of intense focus at GE today is fuel cells. Immelt believes that the solid oxide fuel cell business is likely to grow 40%-plus per annum in the years ahead.
The other area of technology development that excites Immelt is nanotechnology. He notes that nanotech has the potential to open the door to all-new material properties that we haven’t been able to achieve before. Immelt believes that nanotech will be important in the development of materials to make GE’s jet engines more powerful, their imaging systems more accurate, and their power turbines more efficient.
To facilitate technological innovation at GE, Immelt is investing 100 million dollars to expand the company’s global research center near Schenectady, New York. Immelt wants GE Global Research Center to be a hub for driving change at General Electric—a place where he and his colleagues around the world can talk about and develop technology strategy, a place where they keep business leaders educated about developments in the latest technologies. His overall objective is to raise a new generation of leaders at GE that are never intimated by technology.
Sounds like a winning strategy to us. No doubt General Electric founder Thomas Edison would be delighted with Mr. Immelt’s vision.
Steve Waite
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October 06, 2003
Assasinating the Terminator
Here is a good piece in the Weekly Standard on the controversies surrounding Ah-nold:
The past few days have brought out the worst and stupidest in California Democrats--and those who enable them. Governor Gray Davis, sounding more desperate by the day, has accused Arnold of sexual battery. "`Some of these events are clearly a crime," he said Saturday in Oakland at a town hall meeting with women. "Electing a governor who might have committed a crime is obviously going to distract the state from the important work it has to do."
Memo to the governor: Call Susan Estrich, a fellow Democrat and USC law professor (and, by the way, a rape victim). Here's what she wrote in Friday's Los Angeles Times regarding Schwarzenegger: "As a professor of sex discrimination law for two decades and an expert on sexual harassment, I certainly don't condone the unwanted touching of women that was apparently involved here. But these acts do not appear to constitute any crime, such as rape or sodomy or even assault or battery. As for civil law, sexual harassment requires more than a single case of unwelcome touching; there must be either a threat or promise of sex in exchange for a job benefit or demotion, or the hostile environment must be severe and pervasive."
Meanwhile, Jewish Democratic lawmakers have suggested that Arnold's a de facto anti-Semite: "If this was a man that found Adolf Hitler to be a glorified and acceptable and a desirable character, I sure want to know it as a Californian," U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein said on Friday's "Today" show.
Memo to the senator: In addition to reading the full transcript of Arnold's comments of three decades ago (something no California newspaper, politician, or party hack did before spreading the pro-Hitler statement--they all assumed ABC News and the New York Times got it right), there's an Associated Press story worth reading. In it, fitness trainer Kurt Marnul, who knew the candidate when he was an unknown bodybuilder, claims that Schwarzenegger took part at least twice in organized disruptions of neo-Nazi gatherings in Arnold's hometown of Graz during the 1960s. "It's absurd. It's 100 percent wrong that he could have ever liked Hitler," Marnul told AP. "He was so outraged--so filled with rage against the Nazi regime."
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The paper's editor, John Carroll, has admitted that his reporters were on a fishing expedition, making "cold calls" to film industry types looking for dirt on Arnold. Reporters will tell you that thorough investigations often take three to six months before they go to print; the Times did it in seven weeks. Then again, some observers saw this coming a mile way. Here's what Mickey Kaus wrote on blog last Wednesday, a day before Gropergate broke: "Tomorrow would be about the logical last day for the Los Angeles Times to drop its bomb on Arnold Schwarzenegger. If editor John Carroll waits any longer it will look like a late hit designed to stampede the electorate." Something else the Times has to explain: why it took a pass on allegations of Gray Davis mistreating women. Davis-is-an-ogre stories are the stuff of Sacramento lore, going back to the '70s when he was Jerry Brown's chief of staff. In fact, they were chronicled nearly six years ago in a New Times Los Angeles piece by Jill Stewart, now a Sacramento-based columnist. Among her allegations: in the mid-'90s, Davis lost it when a staffer told him a fundraising source hadn't panned out. Stewart thus quotes the aide: "He just went into one of his rants of, 'F-ck the f-cking f-ck, f-ck, f-ck!' I can still hear his screams ringing in my ears. When I stood up to insist that he not talk to me that way, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me until my teeth rattled. I was so stunned I said, 'Good God, Gray! Stop and look at what you are doing! Think what you are doing to me!' And he just could not stop." Here's a link to a column by Stewart as to why the Times didn't apply the Arnold standard to Davis.
It was funny, I was watching Inside Edition with my wife (I just love saying that) and right after the story about all the things that Arnold has allegedly done was a story about how Rush Limbaugh abused pills. Whatever happened to the stories about Cruz Bustamante being a part of an anti-semitic organization in college or him using a 2002 election fund to get around campaign finance laws? I know, I know, since when has the media been objective?
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The anti-American obsession
Jean-Francois Revel has a superb essay in the current New Criterion which is a model of lucidity and clear thinking on European (esp. French) obsessive anti-Americanism.
“Cultural diversity” has replaced “cultural exceptionalism” in the French-inspired, European rhetoric. But in actuality, the two terms cover the same kind of cultural protectionism. The idea that a culture can preserve its originality by barricading itself against foreign influences is an old illusion that has always produced the opposite of the desired result. Isolation breeds sterility. It is the free circulation of cultural products and talents that allows each society to perpetuate and renew itself.
The proof of this goes back to the old comparison between Athens and Sparta. It was Athens, the open city, that was the prolific fount of creation in letters and arts, philosophy and mathematics, political science, and history. Sparta, jealously guarding its “exceptionalism,” pulled off the tour de force of being the only Greek city not to have produced a single notable poet, ora- tor, thinker, or architect; their achievement was “diversity” of a sort, but at the price of emptiness. Parallel phenomena of cultural vacuity are found again in contemporary totalitarian states. Fear of ideological contamination induced the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Maoists to take refuge in an “official” art and a pompously dogmatic literature, sheer insults to the heritage of the peoples on whom they were inflicted.
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You don’t have to be an Aristotle or a Leibniz to grasp that “universal exceptionalism” is a contradiction in terms on the most elementary level of logic. And it is not the only such contradiction in a confused quarrel that has more to do with strong emotions than rational analysis. So Denis Olivennes, who heads Canal +, a television network that plays a big role in the French film industry’s financing, argues that a linchpin of this financial support is a tax on all new releases. In this way, he writes, “American films, which represent about half of new releases, contribute half of the funding.” Here is impressive sleight of hand. For it’s obvious that American films would not provide the funds, but rather the French filmgoer. More generally, the opposition between the state and the market in relation to the arts, between public moneys and the money of the public, is a misleading one. Public funds have but one source: the public, which is taxed by one means or another, directly or indirectly. The question is what proportion of the public’s contribution is freely offered and what proportion is milked from it by government fiat, then spent according to the whims of a minority of political and administrative decision-makers and commissions whose members are appointed, not elected.
A culture becomes decadent when it takes to running down other cultures while heaping praises on itself. Thus the professionals of radio and television keep harping on the notion—which they end up seeming to believe and making their audiences believe—that American television movies, produced with the sole aim of making a profit, avoid all controversial social and political issues. But French series, we are told over and over again, draw from a tradition of publicly funded state television; even productions from our privatized networks follow the aesthetic canons of this tradition. So they escape the “tyranny of profit” and can risk upsetting some of their viewers by courageously airing serious, painful controversies.
But actually, the opposite is true. Michel Winkler has given ample proof of this in his book Les Miroirs de la vie, subtitled Histoire des séries américains. In an interview on Monde television, Winkler (who is a physician and a novelist, and author of the 1998 bestseller La Maladie de Sachs) said: “French television series are not designed to make you think. The three main networks have one and the same policy when it comes to TV drama: … catering to conformism. The viewers are treated like sheep.” Conversely, in the United States “television, with its social critiques, has taken over from the cinema of the years between 1930 and 1950.” Conventional French productions hold the public all the more captive in that only 15 percent of French people have access to cable or satellite television, compared with 80 percent in America.
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Rehashing one of the stalest Marxist clichés, Catherine Tasca, the French minister of culture, confided to the Figaro magazine that “market laws are the totems of American power.” In fact, market laws are not so much totems as the explanation.
I have trouble not excerpting the entire piece, so in the interest of fair use laws, follow the link and read the entire piece at New Criterion.
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Creativity
Psychologists from University of Toronto and Harvard have identified one of the biological bases of creativity and its linked to mental illness.
The study in the September issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology says the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment. Other people's brains might shut out this same information through a process called "latent inhibition" - defined as an animal's unconscious capacity to ignore stimuli that experience has shown are irrelevant to its needs. Through psychological testing, the researchers showed that creative individuals are much more likely to have low levels of latent inhibition.
"This means that creative individuals remain in contact with the extra information constantly streaming in from the environment," says co-author and U of T psychology professor Jordan Peterson. "The normal person classifies an object, and then forgets about it, even though that object is much more complex and interesting than he or she thinks. The creative person, by contrast, is always open to new possibilities."
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Haifa bombing
Check out the list of dead from the Haifa restaurant bombing:
Bruria Zer-Aviv, 59,
her son Bezalel Zer-Aviv, 30,
his wife Keren Zer-Aviv, 29,
and both their children, Liran, 4, and Noya, 1 year old - all from Kibbutz Yagur.
Ze'ev Almog, 61,
his wife Ruth Almog, 60,
their son Moshe Almog, 43,
their grandsons Tomer Almog, 9, and Asaf Staier, 10,
all from Haifa.
Mark Biano, 29,
his wife, Naomi Biano, 25 - from Haifa.
Nir Regev, 25, Nahariya.
Osama Najar, 27, Haifa.
Matanas Karkabi, 29, Haifa.
Hana Naim Francis, 40,
Fassouta, Sherbel Matar, 23,
Fassouta, Zvi Bahat, 35, Haifa,
Irena Sofrin, 38, Kiriat Bialik.
Note the families all but wiped out by the bombing. Also note that 4 Israeli Arabs were among those murdered (the restaurant was Arab-owned as well). They don't even care how many of their own they kill, as long as Jews die with them. All this right before Jews celebrate the most holy day of the year on the Hebrew calendar, Yom Kippur. I guess though that if they started an entire war on that day, a few murdered civilians is nothing. Sharon really needs to do more. You can't just let these people get away with murder.
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"Brights"
Dinesh D'Souza has a good piece in the WSJ about the 'brights' movement, the declaration by a group of atheists to call themselves 'brights' instead of atheists because of the poor connotations of the word 'atheist'.
"We have always had atheists among us," the philosopher Edmund Burke wrote in his "Reflections on the Revolution in France," "but now they have grown turbulent and seditious." It seems that in our own day some prominent atheists are agitating for greater political and social influence. In this connection, leading atheist thinkers have been writing articles declaring that they should no longer be called "atheists." Rather, they want to be called "brights."
Yes, "brights," as in "I am a bright." In a recent article in the New York Times, philosopher Daniel Dennett defined a bright as "a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view." Mr. Dennett added that "we brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter bunny or God." His implication was clear: Brights are the smart people who don't fall for silly superstitions.
Mr. Dennett, like many atheists, is confident that atheists are simply brighter -- more rational -- than religious believers. Their assumption is: We nonbelievers employ critical reason while the theists rely on blind faith. But Mr. Dennett and his fellow "brights," for all their credentials and learning, have been duped by a fallacy. This may be called the Fallacy of the Enlightenment, and it was first pointed out by the philosopher Immanuel Kant.
The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that there is only one limit to what human beings can know, and that limit is reality itself. In this view, widely held by atheists, agnostics and other self-styled rationalists, human beings can continually find out more and more until eventually there is nothing more to discover. The Enlightenment Fallacy holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality.
I myself am an agnostic with strong leanings towards atheism. In fact the only reason I don't refer to myself as an atheist is for such Kantian reasons as outlined by D'Souza, it requires a level of surety as great as the devoutly religious to absoluted deny the existance of God (or gods). What I have never understood, however, was the evangelical imperative some atheists feel. I am annoyed, but more understanding of religious proselytizing, since the deeply religious feel they have your soul to save. I don't understand what the point of atheist proselytizing is. One of the best defenses of religious belief I've ever read was the pragmatic argument made by William James in The Will to Believe. Now it's been thirty years since I've read it, so forgive me if I've lost some of the subtlety of the argument. But it basically comes down to a simple 4x4 value table of beliefs and consequences.
| Belief | God Exists | God Doesn't Exist | | I believe in existance of God | I am correct | I am not correct, but my life has been enriched in some way and I have no way of knowing that I am incorrect | | I don't believe in the existance of God | I am wrong | I am right, so what? |
The basic value of believing is that I am either correct or that even if I am not correct I have added some comfort or security to my life, a positive. If I don't believe than I am either incorrect or so what? Now as I said I classify myself strongly in the not believing category, but that is because faith cannot be manufactured at will and I have too strong a strictly rationalist bent in my makeup. But because of the above equation I would never try to convince someone to give up their beliefs. And while I am quite fond of the philosophical writings of Prof. Dennett on consciousness and evolution and also the genetic and evolution writings of the other most infamous "bright" cheerleader, Richard Dawkins, I think the whole 'bright' nonsense among their more 'stupid' ideas which exemplify their hubris more than their 'brightness'.
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Mr. Schwarzenegger Gets a Pass
Katha Pollitt, whom I disagree with about most everything, has a good op-ed in yesterdays NYT on why Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting too easy a pass from the media (and the electorate) on his Conan-like behaviour towards women. I will also say that she was one of the few voices on the left to strongly deplore the activities of 'BJ' Clinton during his reign, for which I credit her.
Why is it so hard for commentators to come right out and say: here is a man who seems to have a long history of contempt for women, who uses his celebrity to get away with sexual humiliation ? why does he belong in public life? Would that sound too square, too P.C., too, um, feminist? From the newsstand crammed with leering lad magazines like Maxim to all-male, all-the-time talk radio to the self-congratulatory misogyny of "The Man Show," aggressive male chauvinism is back in style, and Mr. Schwarzenegger is its standard-bearer.
Especially for someone running as a social 'liberal'. Vote for McClintock.
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Laser Nanosurgery
Get ready for laser nanosurgery:
With pulses of intense laser light a millionth of a billionth of a second long, US researchers are vaporizing tiny structures inside living cells without killing them. The technique could help probe how cells work, and perform super-precise surgery.
Physicist Eric Mazur of Harvard University and his colleagues have severed parts of cells' internal protein skeleton, have destroyed a single mitochondrion, the cell's powerhouse, leaving its hundreds of neighbours untouched, and have cut a nerve cell's connection without killing it.
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Lost in Translation
I saw "Lost in Translation" over the weekend. I highly recommend it. It was one of those movies which was simply a pleasure to watch. Bill Murray is really great. Though just to warn you, it is more of the Bill Murray we saw in "Rushmore" than the one we remember from SNL.
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Sending a Message
Can I just say that I really loved the Israeli attack on the Syrian terrorist camp? It was a nice reminder to Syria that:
a) Israel can attack you any time it wants and there is nothing you can do to stop any attack. Note no reference to Syrian jets being scrambled to intercept the Israeli fighters.
b) Israel knows that it can attack you and you will be too chicken to respond since you know that your army is no match for the Israeli army.
c) If you continue to support terrorists you will pay the price.
Bravo. In one fell swoop Israel has just humiliated the Syrian army once again.
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Reprieve!
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Quote of the day
"Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave, when they think their children are naive."
-- Ogden Nash
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October 05, 2003
2003 IgNobel Awards
The 2003 IgNobel Prize Winners have been announced.
My favorite:
PHYSICS
Jack Harvey, John Culvenor, Warren Payne, Steve Cowley, Michael Lawrance, David Stuart, and Robyn Williams of Australia, for their irresistible report "An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces."
PUBLISHED IN: Applied Ergonomics, vol. 33, no. 6, November 2002, pp. 523-31. A copy is available at http://www.culvenor.com
I'm planning to do some complimentary research: "How to annoy farm animals".
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